I tried to post this report earlier today but got some error message, so I'm trying again.

I was on my way back from a business trip flying from San Antonio to Denver last Friday night. I always fly Southwest. When I booked the flight, no nonstop flights were available. I had a couple of choices to connect and MacCarran International, my favorite airport in the whole world, was one of the options, so I booked it. When I checked in for my first leg of my travel (SAT-LAS), I found that the flight had been delayed. By the time my flight started boarding, it was too late to even count on making my connection, so I arranged to change my LAS-DEN flight to 5:30 am, giving me about 10 hours on the ground.

If you've read any of my annual trip reports before, you know I take the city bus and Deuce bus everywhere in Vegas. I think it is the best tip I can give anyone who goes there, especially now that casinos are starting to charge for parking. So as soon as I hit the ground, I headed straight for the bus stop (luggage was checked all the way through), bought an $8 all access 24-hour pass. I could have paid $2 each way but I wasn't sure if I might go downtown or want a lift to the Venetian. I jumped on the 108 northbound, got off at Flamingo and grabbed the 202 Westbound and jumped off next to Caesars Palace.

CP has become one of our favorite rooms when my brother and I make our annual trips, $4 max rake, no jackpot rake, nice classy room. I went straight to the Total Rewards counter to have a players card printed since mine was at home. Then I went to the poker room, bought two stacks of Redbirds and was seated immediately in a 1/2 game.

A couple of hands of note:

I had 77 and flopped a set on a board with all spades. In position, it checks to me and I bet and get one caller. The turn is a fourth spade, I check behind. My opponent bet and I folded my set face up and he showed As5s for flopped nut flush. I don't remember the bet sizing or number of players on the flop but I lost about $20 on the hand.

I have AK in the SB and raise a couple of limpers. BB has been gambling and calls. Flop is AQT. Out of position I bet $15 and BB calls heads up. Turn is a blank and I fire $20, he calls. River is another blank and I fire $25, he calls. I announce "one pair" and table top pair top kicker. He folds muttering something that acknowledges that he was out kicked.

Hand of the night: I call a small raise with 4 or 5 callers with QT on the button. Flop is 8J5 and checks around to me, I check my gut shot. Turn is 9, giving me the nut straight. I bet $20 and get 3 callers. River is 6, checks to me, I bet $35 and get two callers. The player who folded must have missed his flush draw. I table and announce "nuts" (I love to table and announce "nuts"). The callers hit lower straights and dealer pushes the pile to me.

During my session, I logged into my wsop.com account and played a $1 SNG. I found it hard to pay attention to the action in both games and busted out of the SNG.

My brother and I are doing our annual trip in 3 weeks, so I cashed out after about 3 hours of play and $107 in profit and did a quick recon of the poker rooms and blackjack tables in Caesars Palace, Harrah's, Linq, Flamingo, and Cromwell (no poker there). All the blackjack tables were 6:5 except I saw two 3:2 tables with $25 mins in Cromwell. After my quick recon, I went to the bus stop by Bally's, jumped the 202 eastbound then the 108 southbound back to MacCarran.

I went through the TSA checkpoint about 12:30 am and was the only one there, gotta love that. Then I went to the gate and logged into a $2 MTT that was in late reg with about 11 players in it. I quickly regretted that as I could barely stay awake. I ended up shoving my stack off and napping a bit before waking up to find they had changed my departure gate and boarding had begun.

All in all a nice surprise visit to the strip. Stay tuned for my next trip report on or after September 5.